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Disclaimer: This post has been sitting in my drafts since this first week I’ve arrived in Queensland. I’m now 4 weeks away till my finals :DDDD (fake smile)

Guess what peeps, I’m finally a queen with my own land! Cant remember how many times I used my own pun and laughed to it. I tell myself that I’m funny : ‘) The excitement I felt during the announcement of my results and being accepted to uni is indescribable. I swear everything is still so fresh in my mind. I was in Madinah when I received my SACE results and everything felt really right. I remember smiling all day long because I was so so happy.

Well fast forward 3 months later, smile is all gone peeps. Hahaha I was just kidding, the smile is still there buried inside this body of mine. I really love my uni because it is so big and SO PRETTY!!! Classes are all good and the environment here is also very warming. People are very friendly and welcoming. There are so generous with compliments! I was flattered at first but then I realised its a norm here so I no longer feel special : ( Jokes apart, the people here are generally very nice and you wouldn’t feel like an outsider. By general I mean you’ll still get some minor indirect racism but nothing much. So all is well.

So far I’ve joined the UQ Refugee Tutoring Club and I did not regret it at all. I’ll write a special post on this one day (can’t promise when cause I’m such a busy lady *flips hijab*). I also joined Malaysian Got Talent 2.0 and made it to finals!!! (Omg have to write one post about this one too!) And last but not least I’m joining a musical theatre. I play a small role in the musical and the show will be on this coming Sunday! Ahh Im so excited and nervous at the same time.

So far I’ve travelled to Melbourne for autumn break and Sydney for a weekend getaway. Before you make any assumptions, I went to Sydney for a meet up with my sponsor so it’s all work (I sound so adult haha). Sydney was spectacular! Well 3 days doesn’t do the justice so I’ll probably come and visit again. The only down side of it is that travelling in Sydney is soooooooo expensive : (

So that basically summarises my 3 months or so in the sunshine state. I’m going to write more soon but now I need to continue studying for my online test tomorrow. Enjoy some photos and till next time!

Look at our excited faces!!!

The iconic Forgan Smith Building (the quality kinda sucks here but it is so majestic irl)

And these two are from orientation week. One of my 2017 goals is to take good photos and I even downloaded vsco. Well obviously my talent aint going nowhere mate. At least I tried :’)

Last year, I did my Research Project regarding the Rohingya refugees which made me realised a lot of the stuffs that I never ever paid attention to before. Im not yet an expert in things regarding the refugees as there are so much more reading that I have to do but there are some vital things that I think everyone should be more aware of – the two important privileges we have as Malaysians.

Our national identification card

Have you ever look to your blue card and be grateful that you own it? Most of the time I am not really attentive of my IC until I started misplacing it. I even went to camp last week without my IC and only realised it when we played a game where an IC was needed. My mom always jokes on how if I don’t have it with me the police might mistaken me for an Indonesian. Well, I never really took that seriously and I just see the card as a normal card with my identification on it.

When I researched on the problems Rohingya refugees faced in Malaysia, almost everything falls back to the fact that they do not own any form of identification. Back in Myanmar, Rohingyas are not recognised as one of the many ethnics. The government refused to acknowledge their existence thus they are known to be stateless. Being stateless is when you are not recognised as a citizen of any country. When you are not considered as a citizen of your own country, you lost all the rights you should have. Rohingyas are not able to have access to public education, to have jobs, obtain medical treatment and the list goes on and on. Can you imagine that? Being rejected in the country you were born in and what’s worst, many Rohingyas were killed and tortured. The history behind all these violence goes a long way back and I really do encourage people to read about it (I couldn’t write everything here so if you have the time, you should try and google it). Rohingyas came all the way to Malaysia in hoping to live a better life but sadly, even here, they still face all kinds of hardship. The fact that they do not have an identification card it forbids them to apply for a work permit, attend public schools or even get married legally. The UNHCR do give out refugee cards but not all of them are entitled to it. It hits me then how having an identity that is recognised is a HUGE deal. My point is, be grateful that you can call yourself Malaysian and you have a country you can call home. We can walk around town without the fear that we might get caught. We are able to seek for a job without being questioned where we come from. We can apply for a driving license and drive to anywhere we want to. We have the rights to public healthcare along so many other rights as a Malaysian. Alhamdulillah.

Attending public schools

I still remember how I refused to go to my evening session school which is an Islamic school. In Johor, students must attend Islamic school on top of attending primary school. I get tired easily and everyday I’ll make up different excuses to just skip school. I’ll pretend to be fast asleep even after my parents waking me up for so many times. What can I say, I am a pretty rebellious child. When I volunteered to tutor Rohingya children, I was literally mesmerised. It really did make me realise how lucky I am to be able to attend primary school and then to a boarding school and to college. These children came running up the stairs on a Saturday morning eager to learn anything you are willing to share. I was in charged of children aged 3-5 years old and these children are truly happy even when you just started singing ABC to them. They could not really read yet and explaining them simple words and their meaning is quite difficult as they are not that fluent in both English and Malay. They can count numbers up to 10 but only few can do simple additions. They do have school from Monday till Friday where Rohingya adults themselves will teach them but I was told that their syllabus is not that advance comparing to Malaysian syllabus. (Mind you that this is only an example from the centre I went. There are a number of centres around KL which may have different systems and syllabus) Some older children aged 13 and above are still struggling with divisions and what not and Malaysians here are already on algebra, differentiation and integration. And that’s only Maths, I haven’t even started on Physics, History, Biology, Geography, Living Skills, Chemistry and so on. How lucky we are to learn all of these at school and that we have certified teachers to answer all the questions that lingers in our mind. I remember asking the owner of the centre about the future of these children and he returned my question with a faint smile. More often than not, when they turned 15, they will start helping their parents to find income for the family by working at the market, collecting old steels and all kinds of odd jobs. Seeing this situation made me truly more grateful for the rezeki Allah blessed me with. I am able to receive education as early as a 4 year old child until this very moment and Alhamdulillah I am financially supported. From that day onwards I get a little bit pissed off if I hear people skipping schools when they feel like it because you don’t know how others are dying to be in your spot. Rohingya children are more than willing to attend school and to learn while some of us feels like sleeping in on a Monday morning *sigh*. I’m a tad bit emotional about this because I really do value education and I believe everyone should to. Be grateful that you are allowed to attend school/college/university and receive a certification which can be used to further your studies or to apply jobs. Even when life seems to be hard for you, thank Allah that you were given an opportunity when someone else didn’t.

Regarding my research project, Alhamdulillah I received an A from it. I made a magazine as my research outcome and I do have a video of it but couldn’t upload it so I’ll just upload a collage of it here. Please don’t expect a professional magazine as I only made it using powerpoint and all the editing skills I have in store but overall I’m certainly proud of it : )

Guess what peeps, when I first wrote the title ‘in and out of sace’, my autocorrect changed it to ‘in and out of space’ haha well sace and space are two tots different stuffs but the struggles of going through sace might even get you to space ; )

My very first (and the last) photo of me in front of my college gate! Well look at me, so proud being a college girl :’) Haha well life at intec was so much fun and going through sace was bearable because of the people I had around me. From my classmates, housemates, sace 31 members, lecturers and even the mak cik cafe. I really miss the food at intec especially the kuey teow goreng aluk, nasi lemak ausmat & keropok leaker gagak *cries*

So lets do a lil throwback of my journey through sace : ) (oh for those of you who might not know, sace is a preparatory program similar to a-levels, matriculation, foundation etc)

Ahh I could stare at these photos for hours and still be mesmerized by it as though it was my first time seeing it. I present you, my c-double-o-g-double-e, COOGEE! My classmates are truly the best and I couldn’t wish for anything more. We do a lot of random stuffs and three of them involves driving like cray cray to Mcdonald’s.

First was when we had an impromptu car race to mcd and whoever reach there last will have to pay for all the ice creams (sadly no photo of that : ( ) Well guess what, I arrived last with Pia and Inas *insert upside down smiley emoji*

Second was when our national athletes won gold for the Paralympics and mcd gave out free nuggets. Mind you that this was around 10am and Miss Yvonne was very kind and understanding that she dismissed our class early so we can take them free nuggets! You see the poster of ‘SERTAI pasukan kami’ back there, bet ya coogee would be happy to sign up hehe.

And the third one was during mcd’s free breakfast day. We would never wake up early but when its free food you’re talking about, nothing is impossible. I couldn’t find a photo of that either : ( We were in a rush as me and Ika had to send Jiqah to the bus stand. Oh guys this is a good story. Jiqah wanted to go back home to batu pahat but she haven’t bought her bus ticket yet. Traffic in shah alam in the morning is cray cray and you’d be surprise with the amount of cars on the road. We needed to catch the 9am bus or else the next bus is at 1am but the traffic and wrong turns made it almost impossible which made Jiqah all stressed out. As soon as we reached the bus stand it was already 9.01am, and there was a bus leaving which we presumed is the batu pahat bus so Ika went all crazy and stop her car right in front of the bus. Me and Jiqah went even more crazier! We get out of the car and literally put our hands out and told the bus to stop *insert upside down smiley emoji* And guess what, THE BUS STOPS! I felt so powerful at that time as I made the bus stops and also glad that my friend would not miss her bus well until the pak cik asks us…

“Adik nak balik mana?”

“Batu Pahat”

“Lah bas ni nak ke KL. Bas Batu Pahat belum sampai”

asdfghjkl!@#$$%^* omg all that drama for nothing?????? Hahahahahah never assume guys. Well Jiqah did board the right bus 5 minutes later and safely travelled back home so all was good. I had a good laugh with Ika after as we ate our free breakfast at a burger king parking lot.

I also had Pia who will always bribe me with vanilla ice creams but vanilla ice cream is bae so not complaining about that. There’s also Marsy Mars who introduced me to Carrie Bradshaw and also to schmores! It is actually s’mores but pronouncing it as schmores made it sound way better. Ahh major love to each and everyone of them. Sorry I couldn’t write everything down here, I wouldn’t want to bore my readers (if i had any lol)

Had the first and last iftar together with them and even played firecrackers with the whole sace fam after!

And guys, I even donated blood for the very first time!!!

I was very excited to give my blood away that I was the first in line hehe. Those of you who knows me will know how much I am terrified of blood so this is an absolute achievement. I almost fainted during the process but anis was there talking about tay tay to me so I guess it went well.

Speaking of anis, I went to the gym for the first time ever and my gym partner is the one and only ninish!

Look at our attempt of making a fierce face lol. This was went Anis would drag me to intec during study week and made me listen to her babbling all about physics and then we’ll watch surihati mr pilot during lunch break. I wouldn’t be studying twice as hard if it wasn’t for this girl. Anis and I would randomly go to the gym at 12 midnight and then we’ll get so tired that we won’t even shower so I’ll just sleep on the floor hehe. Well, we didn’t really manage to achieve our ‘body goals’ but at least we tried :’)

I had a great group of friends throughout my 18 months in collage and will always cherish them. They called me ‘mami’ as a resemblance to mom with reasons I’m still unsure of. Ahh I miss you guys big time!

And not forgetting, I owe most of the fun I had in college to my roommie, Queen Elsa!

We’re both queens now ( will tell you why someday ; ) ) I still remember how we’ll buy at least 6 or more 5.5litres cactus mineral water and push it with a trolley all the way from Mydin to Akasia. Man, the struggles to drink a lot of water was real back then. Had a lot of good memories with this one and more to come inshaAllah.

Last but not least, lots of love to all the sace fam. Thank you for all the memories and I hope I’ll see you guys again! Xx.

I have been neglecting to write a post regarding my Research Project because I was scared of not getting good results. I would probably be ashamed of it if I were to write about it here then. My house is currently very quiet and all these worries are in my head and the butterflies finally found their way into my tummy. I really don’t know what to feel because honestly, I always get disappointed in myself whenever I enter competitions or in this case conduct a research. I have constantly faced failures before but this time, I really wished I would succeed. I believe that I had pour my 110% effort in my research but I am not sure if that would be enough. I mean what if I needed to push myself just a bit further to achieve my desired results but I didn’t? Ya Allah, all these scary thoughts are consuming me and honestly, it does not feel nice at all. There is less than 7 hours until my results are released. All I hope now is that I would receive a satisfactory results and that my hard work paid off. If not…well let’s not talk about that.

I really wish I could achieve that level where I will be able accept whatever God gives me whole-heartedly or in other words we call it redha. It really does not require any effort to tell someone to be satisfied and redha with whatever Allah gave you but practicing it is surely a challenge. But for now, I believe the magical power of prayers (dua) is still there and I should be positive and leave the rest to Him, inshaAllah.

All these while I thought trying to get rid of black heads on my nose is the painful thing ever but now I know that it is nothing comparing to the pain Im experiencing now. So a month ago I went for a visit to the dentist for a dental check-up. Way back when I was in form 5, I was supposed to wear braces but yada yada yada I didn’t. So during my visit to the dentist last month, the dentist went on and on, on how my teeth would be prettier if I were to wear a retainer. Well the first choice was braces but considering the fact that I am short of one tooth (so weird, I know) there would be too many spaces between my teeth and it would be too painful hence, we resolved to the second option which was a retainer. I actually thought that it would be cool *face palm* and the thought that I can take off my retainer whenever I want does not seem that painful to me. Well why did no one ever warn me *insert upside down smiling emoji*

I had to go through what others have to do on getting braces – Moulding. Moulding my lower teeth was fine that I said to myself this is not as bad as how they said it would be but didn’t I spoke too soon *face palm again*. When it comes to moulding my upper teeth, I was soooooo close to vomiting. You feel like your mouth is so full and that the mould were just a few millimetres away from your throat. That choking feeling made me wanna throw up but I stayed cool and the dentist made me sit up straight so I won’t be making a pool of vomit in her room *ew*

So fast forward to a month later which was yesterday – The day I finally wore a retainer wuhuuuu (my first impression guys -__-). The fitting session was okay, it was not painful but it does felt weird. The dentist said that I would be experiencing so much drooling and will constantly feel like throwing up and I was like er why didn’t you tell me this earlier? And yup it started right that instance. I kept going to the sink and asking for towels because all of the sudden my saliva is producing like Niagara falls (disgusting I know). I could not even talk properly.

Since it’s the holy month of Ramadan, I would go to the mosque to perform my tarawih prayers. Oh God it was so torturing. My mouth is constantly filled with drool and honestly there was only two options: 1. Spit it out or 2. Suck it in. Well obviously how can I spit my saliva while I was praying???? Nope that’s not the worst part yet. This morning when I woke up for Sahur I took my retainer off in hoping that I can enjoy my meal peacefully. The moment I took it off, it was as though my teeth are mad at me for caging them with this steel bar and making their revenge on me by emitting pain all over my teeth. It was so painful that all I did was stare at my empty plate. I ended up only drinking a cup of milo and mama made me some quaker oat with milk :’) I made myself some mashed potato for break fast today while other’s are enjoying some homemade Nasi Lemak :’)

I was not given any proper storage case to store my retainer so I used mama’s small tuppaware and store it during Sahur. Praying and reciting the quran is kinda difficult as I can’t really pronounce the ayat correctly hence I decided to wear it back after my Subuh prayers. Here’s the best part. Few moments after I wore my retainer back, it suddenly felt weird. It felt very pedas(spicy) as though I just ate some chillis. I went to sniff the tuppaware I used and not to my surprise it smelled like sambal (a spicy paste) -____-“ It was obviously my mistake for not cleaning the tuppaware before using it and now I learned my lesson. Thank God the drooling is less today and I don’t feel like throwing up anymore but the pain remains.

As expected, my semester two results was disappointing. I failed to meet my sponsor’s requirement for the second time *sigh*. In high school, I really do think with that much effort, I can at least achieve my target but now, well let’s just say it is so much harder than I thought. I’m writing this as a self reminder that I always need to give a hundred per cent effort in everything I do. I have to admit that sometimes I feel tired or bored of studying. I always assume that what I studied is already enough to answer those papers but now I realised that my effort it is not even close to ‘enough’. I’m actually bored of studying for my test right now that I’m writing this in hoping that I could give myself some motivation. Haih, when will this lazy sickness ever leave me?

You know the feeling of watching your friends receive better results than you and have that kind of jealously? I have to admit I feel that all the time and that’s bad. I mean you should be supportive of your friends rather than be bitter about it right? So my Ramadan resolution this year is to clear my heart from negativity. This jealously is seriously toxic to ones heart. Sometimes it can made you feel as though you are better than someone else. It’s really bad and I don’t want it to consume my heart anymore. Rather than feeling bitter or even jealous, I should work harder to improve myself right?

So here, I am going to put on a list on what I should do for my final semester

1. To study every day and do more exercises.

2. Complete my homework on the same day (NO MORE DELAYING!)

3.NO SLEEPING IN THE EVENING! Girl, you know that sleeping after Asar is not good. You have to stop that habit, seriously.

4. Pray on time, recite the quran more often and do more sunnah prayers.

5. No sleeping in on weekends. Ugh this is the hardest part guys -____-

I’ll keep the list to just five for now. To be able to achieve all that is an achievement already! But most importantly, I always need to remember to check my intention every day (betulkan niat). Whatever we do in this world, we have to do it for the sake of Him. Lillahitaala. And He will do the rest. So yeah, I certainly need to remember that.

And lastly, I have this one ayat from surah Ar-Rahman which would always remind me why I should not give up

فَبِأَيِّ آلَاءِ رَبِّكُمَا تُكَذِّبَانِ

“So which of the favors of your Lord would you deny?”

He already granted me a scholarship to study overseas, what more can I wish for? Is that not enough for me to study and get good results? Sometimes we forgot of all the rezeki we have and took it for granted. Girl, you received all that you wished for, all that is left for you to do now is to study. Getting bored of studying should never be your excuse ever again.

Today marks an important day of my life. Never have I thought that a friend of mine could have gone so soon. And to be honest, I cannot really believe it happened. It was too fast and it took me a while to digest everything. I guess that’s the thing with life and death, it is never predictable and we cannot see what’s coming. But I believe that the ones we love never truly leave us, they are always here, in our hearts.

You’re someone who sprinkles happiness to everyone around you so they too can taste the sweetness of joy. Even for someone who only gets to know you just for a day can feel the magic you spread. And even with you gone, you still have that magic touch with you because every single time you cross someone’s mind, they will always remember how you made them happy. That’s how beautiful you are Fiza. I wish I could have said this sooner but that’s the thing with us humans, sometimes, we say things when it is already far too late.

You reminded us to always cherish the people around us, to always care for the ones we love and most importantly, you brought us together.

Today was the last time I saw your face and kiss you goodbye. May Allah bless you. Always in our hearts and prayers, Nur Hafizah binti Mohd Faisol.